Short Chips: Australia ready to offer the long fairway drive
Plans are under way in Australia to build the world's largest golf course. You're probably thinking, hmmm, 8,500 yards, maybe even a ridiculous 9,000? Wrong!
This unique development is planned to span over 870 miles of desert between Western and Southern Australia!
The course will cross two time zones, encompass some of the flattest, driest terrain on the planet and instead of greens it will feature 'browns' -- a mixture of sand and oil.
The idea was developed by the country's Tourist Board to support the outback regions that are hit badly by drought.
People journeying across the plains will be encouraged to play a single hole when they take a break from the road, before moving on to the next hole on their travels.
"The Japanese are prepared to play golf on a rooftop," said developer of the course Alf Caputo, "Can you imagine? They'll be flocking in hordes to get over here and play this."
Maybe for the Japanese, but for us Irish, who often struggle to find our way up the meandering entrance to the K Club, this may be a case of "a good drive ruined"!
A year is all it takes, assures Erik
EVERY club golfer has high and often unrealistic ambitions for their game, but only in America could you find an 18-handicapper hoping to become a PGA Tour golfer in a year.
An everyday Joe Soap from Cape Cod, Massachusetts called Erik has launched a website called pgahereicome.com, where he reveals his plans to become a pro golfer.
Erik decided his life wasn't going where he wanted it to so told himself, "I'll just be a PGA Tour golfer." "My awakening at 25 was that life is too short and I needed to start focusing more on doing things I love," Erik writes.
"And, if everything goes as planned, at the end of the year I'll have landed myself a spot somewhere in the golf-world."
Back-to-back aces worth a punt
IN a summer full of hole-in-one stories including a lady who has struck 16 aces in less than a year and a blind lady's hole-in-one, there surely can't be many records left to beat.
But in Newark, New Jersey, two friends couldn't believe their luck when they hit two consecutive aces on the same hole. The odds of a golfer scoring an ace are about 5,000 to 1, but, according to a 'Golf Digest' article in 2000, the odds of two players in a foursome doing it are 17 million to 1.
Neither the US Golf Association nor the World Golf Hall of Fame had information on the frequency of back-to-back aces, but it's certainly worth sticking a quid on it at the bookies!
'QUOTE/UNQUOTE'
"It's not like I took a Samurai sword and chopped heads off."
Ian Poulter after he was fined for hitting a tee marker in anger at the Mercedez-Benz Championship.
"If she is in a good mood, she brings a lot. It is about trying to keep her in a good mood. I said to her: 'I know it's your way or the highway. We're trying to make it your way so we don't all end up on the highway'."
Solheim Cup Captain Helen Alfredsson on trying to cater for the rather temperamental Laura Davies.
